Centre Pompidou Hanwha opened its ceremony on May 19, 2026 inside the transformed annex of Seoul’s 63 Building, with a public debut on June 4. The museum is developed through a four-year partnership between the French institution and the Hanwha Foundation of Culture. The opening exhibition, The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision, traces the emergence and evolution of Cubism using works from the Pompidou collection. Designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the project converts the former aquarium annex into a luminous four-story “box of light,” adding more than 3,000 square meters of exhibition space. Natural light is drawn into galleries by carving into the existing structure, while the translucent double-glazed facade references traditional Korean roof tiles. Two main exhibition halls, educational areas, and public-facing spaces connect urban life with contemporary art, supported by joint Korea-France research, interpretation, and education programs.
"Paris' Centre Pompidou officially arrives in Seoul as the new Centre Pompidou Hanwha held its opening ceremony on May 19th, 2026, inside the transformed annex of the city's iconic 63 Building. Developed through a four-year partnership between the French institution and the Hanwha Foundation of Culture, the museum launches ahead of its public debut on June 4th with The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision, a sweeping exhibition tracing the emergence and evolution of Cubism through works from the Pompidou collection."
"Designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the project transforms the former aquarium annex of the 63 Building in Yeouido into a luminous four-story museum conceived as a 'box of light.' The intervention introduces more than 3,000 square meters of exhibition space to the Korean capital, bringing Centre Pompidou's modern and contemporary art program to Seoul while positioning the institution as a new cultural bridge between Korea, France, and the wider international art scene."
"The architectural intervention by Jean-Michel Wilmotte carves into the existing structure to draw natural light deep into the galleries during the day while allowing the building to glow outward into Seoul's skyline at night. Its translucent double-glazed facade references the curvature of traditional Korean roof tiles, while a horizontal band of light contrasts against the vertical profile of the neighboring tower. The renovation introduces two main exhibition halls of approximately 1,600 square meters each, alongside educational and public-facing spaces intended to connect everyday urban life with contemporary art."
"The museum extends the international strategy of the Centre Pompidou while adapting its curatorial model to the Korean context through joint Korea-France research, interpretation, and education programs."
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]